Fava Fiasco

I'd never cooked fava beans before, although I'd eaten them a couple of times and loved their taste of fresh-peas crossed with baby lima beans.  So when they appeared in the store again this spring, I figured we'd finally give them a try. 

I had to consult with a few cookbooks to figure out what to do with them, and that's when the confusion began.  These beans have giant, hairy pods, the beans inside have a shell, and then there's the part you actually eat.  I needed three cookbooks to discern that much, after weeding out the canned, dried and too-little-information recipes!

The prep-chefs got to work:

Here are the three stages of Fava:

(unpeeled, beans with shell and fully peeled (in the bowl).  Oddly, the chickens loved the silvery husks, but wouldn't touch the pods!)

I thought we'd try something simple, a fava-bean spread that consisted of beans, olive oil and garlic.  We'd really be able to taste the beans, and how hard could it be to make mush?

(please hold your laughter...)

We cooked a little garlic, we added the oil and beans and simmered.  Disclaimer: I have a habit of monkeying with recipes, but this time it wasn't my fault!  (I swear!)  I didn't have the quantity of beans called for in the recipe so I had to adjust...

 

They looked good....at first.  But they were oddly hard to mush.  Even with the help of permanent-marker-monster-hands!

See what I mean?

The yeah-right-you-call-this-mush? tasted pretty good on the crackers, but olive oil and garlic have a way of doing that...no matter what.  I think we overcooked both the beans and the garlic, but if anyone out there has suggestions for these beans, we're looking for guidance!  In the meantime, maybe we'll follow the recipe next time and see what happens.

Frozen Inventions

Here's a gadget I love: popsicle molds.  It's been getting pretty warm out here, so it was time to crank up the popsicle factory.

I basically put the kids in charge of this one, and let them at it.  They love to invent recipes, so these included some lemonade, orange juice, strawberry & rhubarb sauce and....a teeny sprite from the back of the fridge.  The scientist-chefs went to work, testing the first batch of 2010's popsicles.

A few hours later, we learned that sprite works, but the crystals are larger than juice-based pops.  Not ideal.

The list of ideas grew longer - thankfully summer begins early around here!

Turnips

Remember those baby turnips from the farmer's market I mentioned last time?

I had eaten perfect baby turnips last year in a little restaurant off an alley near Place Vosges in Paris and they were just about this size.  Why not recreate that moment, never mind the lack of rough-hewn stone walls, old wood, creaky floors and the haughty insistence of the host that we really needed a reservation but, since we were so early he'd see what he could do..., I opened Mastering the Art... and we were off!  It couldn't have been simpler.  We chopped the greens off, trimmed the tops and bottoms and washed them up.

No peeling, no blanching (because they were so small), they went right into the pot with enough chicken broth to nearly cover them and some butter (don't tell Julia, but I used 1/4 her recommended amount!)

They simmered for about 20 minutes, I cut them into halves and put them in little dishes: voila!

We ate them with a salad topped with the cranberry-shitake chicken mix and olive-oil drizzled avocados.  I was hoping the kids would hold true to stereotypes and dislike the turnips but they gobbled them up.  Sweet, tangy, buttery and brothy - they were delicious!  A grind of pepper suited me, but they didn't need anything else.

Bon Appétit!

Mushroom-Cranberry Chicken Wraps

We went to an outdoor concert this weekend and I wanted to make something we could put in a wrap, then use another way for dinner on Sunday.  Inspired by a similar recipe, we created this chicken saute. 

Slice three chicken breasts into 1 inch strips and season lightly with pepper and salt.

Saute in a non-stick pan, lighly sprayed with canola oil.

When the meat has cooked through, remove from the pan.  Deglaze with 2 TB of white wine or a flavorful vinegar (balsamic or brown rice, for example), add 6-8 fresh shitake mushrooms (sliced into thin ribbons) and a scant 1/4 cup dried cranberries. 

Cook over medium-low heat until the mushrooms are done, about 6 minutes.  Mix the chicken back in.

We took some whole-wheat flour wraps and added mayo and lots of lettuce, the chicken mix and wrapped them up.

After the concert, we found some amazing little turnips at the farmer's market - but we'll save those for tomorrow's post!

Go on, spoil your appetite!

It's an interesting thing, this business of having children.  Especially when you stumble on ideas that you've internalized as truths and therefore never question.  Sometimes those truths are good things ("Don't run with scissors!"  "Don't put pennies in your mouth!") and sometimes they're just leftovers.

"Don't spoil your appetite" is now a leftover, for me.

The main reason I began cooking with my children was that I had limited time to do two things that are important to me: spend time with them and make dinner. 

Dinner is much more than food at the end of the day.  I have wonderful memories of sitting around a wooden oval table with my sisters and parents, laughing, yelling, talking, teasing, and eating.  For the most part, it wasn't about the food, it was about the ritual.  We set the table.  We sat in the same places (heaven forbid you take someone else's favorite spot!).  We cleared the dishes (or tried to get out of it).  We spilled stuff.  We argued.  We sulked.  We talked.  We listened.  Sometimes it was chaos, but mostly it was sustenance.

I wanted to have some version of that with my own children.  Then reality and his unwanted guests (short tempers, late hours, ill-organized pantries, and hungry, tired children) come crashing through the door at 5:30, flinging the cozy memories out of the way.  Who wouldn't go for a quick fix with the pizza guy? 

I struggled for a long time (too long, honestly) to convince my children if they could just wait "a few minutes"  dinner would be ready "soon".  Yeah, right.

"Can't I just have a snack??"  My son would wail.

"No, because snacks are for the afternoon, and they will (here it comes) Spoil Your Appetite!"

Finally, worn down by the stress, I gave in.  "Here, have some cheese and crackers."

Amazing what happened next: he stopped complaining. 

Even more amazing: he stayed in the kitchen and talked to me. 

And even MORE amazing: he still ate his dinner.

So, now we're civilized.  We have some cheese and crackers before dinner.  Sometimes, we try unusual cheeses.  Then we cook.  Meanwhile, I've edited my list of truths.

New truth:  An appetizer makes for a more civilized appetite.

The Ones That Got Away

Sometimes, you forget about the back of the cupboard...where the line between ingredient and science experiment can get blurred.  I'm not sure whether to be amused or creeped-out by these alienesque yukon golds.

What more can I say?

What a Cream Puff

Sometimes, you go all out. 

We made desserts for a party a couple of weeks ago, and the profiteroles were a real treat.  What could be better than a pastry filled with cream and dunked in chocolate, really?  I've only made them a couple of times before with recipes from the Pie and Pastry Bible.  No single step in the process is difficult...but oh the time!  It's no wonder we don't have these every weekend.

The dough for the cream puffs is a simple flour-based mixture, cooked in a saucepan for just a few minutes.  Then you scoop it into an icing bag and pipe little blobs on a cookie sheet.  The kids had a great time learning to use the bag - it's as if all that training with play-dough was just to prepare them for this. 

The little blobs magically transform into little puffs in the oven, and after they've cooked a short time, you turn the oven off and they dry out while you head to the pool for a swim.

Delightful little hollow things! 

While we turned them over and made the holes, my son and I had a lengthy discussion of what a cream puff was, literally and in the pushover sense.  The pastry bag is then refilled with pastry cream (also easy to make stovetop, the day before) and a squirt of cream goes in the hole in the bottom of each puff. 

The choclate glaze in the cookbook was as easy as can be - microwaved cream over chocolate chips left to set until they melt.  Each puff was dipped in the choclate sauce and nestled on the platter.

You can see them in the back:

The recipe says they're best if eaten within three hours of being filled, so they were the last thing we made.  We have yet to know what they taste like past their three-hour-birthday, however.

Perfection in a puff.

Beef Soup with Summer Squash

We've been on a roll with the slow-cooker lately, using up some pantry goods and making a busy week a little easier.  I've been trying out some soups, and this one was inspired by a recipe from an asian cookbook for garlicy, cinnamon noodles with beef. 

I let the soup cook up during the day and then prepare a quick vegetable side and some noodles to mix into the soup, when we get home.  The kids are able to help put the ingredients together for the soup or chop the veggies at supper time.

The first night, we had some corn-on-the-cob and some egg-noodles in the soup.  The second night we had some pastina in the soup and some sauted yellow squash with shallots on the side.  The soup was even better the second night.

Cinnamon Beef Soup:
In a slow cooker, combine 1.5 lb stew beef, 1 14-ounce can chopped tomatoes, 1 cup water, 1 can chick-peas, 2 cloves garlic, crushed.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  At the end of cooking, add: 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (Saigon Cinnamon is best here), 1/2 tsp dark sesame oil, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1/2 tsp worscheshire sauce, hot sauce and salt to taste.

Serve with noodles, try buckwheat, egg, or small shapes mixed in.

Sauted Yellow Squash:

Thinly slice 2 shallots, saute in 1 TB of canola oil and 1 TB butter for 2 minutes,

Add 2 large yellow squash, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

Cover and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

When the squash begins to brown, add 1/2 cup water and continue to cook, covered, stirring occasionally, another 8 minutes or until the squash is soft and translucent.

Just like Julia

My daughter was stationed at the counter, ready to help with the strawberries.  "I know how to hold it like Julia Child!"  she said.

And indeed, she did.

We were making some strawberry-rhubarb sauce (yes, again!) and my assistant had helped herself to the largest knife available and was nimbly chopping up the strawberries.  I admit it, I was a little nervous.  She was not.  She had her fingertips tucked in, just like Julia, and was having a blast.

A while back, I'd borrowed the French Chef DVDs from our local library and we'd watched a few episodes.  I vaguely remember pointing out how Julia kept her fingers tucked away from the blade, but we spent more time laughing at her inability to find things that we, with the camera's view, could see.  She slapped the behemoth lobster, making us all laugh.  By the time she pulled a steamy, bubbling tripe dish out of the oven, we were all ready to try it, and I had a hankering to stuff some sausages of my own (far superior, she insisted, to what you find at the store).

I don't suppose old French Chef reruns are typical family entertainment, here or elsewhere, but I'm glad we watched a few episodes together.  I'd never seen any of them, and I was struck by the pure fun of the episodes.  I always assumed Julia Child was...well, you know, Julia Child.  And yet, reading her memoir a while back, I was amazed to learn she wasn't the Julia Child we know until later in her life.  No matter the time or book, one senses with overwhelming certainty that she was herself, through and through.

At dinner this evening, my son recalled two lines of a poem I'd told them months ago - uncannily appropriate:

"You got a bell man, ring it,

You got a song man, sing it."

I love cooking and spending time with my children, and I hope that whoever they may be, they'll find some pleasure in the kind of time we're spending together. Knives and all.
By Robert Creeley:
One bell wouldn’t ring loud enough
So they beat the bell to hell, Max,
with an axe, show it who’s boss,
boss. Me, I dreamt I dwelt in
someplace one could relax
but I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
You got a song man, sing it.
You got a bell man, ring it.

Pizza-Pizza!

Early on, I realized I didn't have the time or the inclination to become a short-order-chef-mom, preparing three or four different dinners each night.  I only have time to make one dinner after work, and that's what we'd all eat.  It's been a balancing act at times. 

I do try to include at least one thing currently on the "eat" list for each child - and that list shifts faster than the current "it" list!  There have been some disaster dinners along the way though.  You know, the ones where nobody likes anything and there are tears involved. 

But one dinner that always works, providing that perfect place beteween mom-directed and kid-desired, is do-it-yourself pizza.

We've tested a variety of crusts including ready-made, frozen and homemade.  I have my favorite homemade dough, but it does require remembering to make it the night before.  Since this is a rescue dinner, we keep a couple of balls of premade dough from the local store in the freezer.  I can usually remember to take one of those out the morning, when I realize there's nothing ready for dinner. 

I also try to stash some frozen mozzarella (those shredded bags go right into the freezer) and frozen pepperoni so we have the basics on hand.  We never use a whole pepperoni so I cut it into disks and toss the extras in a freezer bag - it lasts quite a while.  Everything else is up to the current state of the pantry and crisper!

Canned mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, shredded basil, some fresh mozzarella, spinach, onions, garlic, anything goes in the name of experimental pizza!

For sauce, I find the easiest thing is to put a 14oz can of chopped tomatoes in a small pan with some garlic and simmer it while you're making the dough and getting the toppings ready.  That thickens it a bit and lets the garlic cook.  We like our garlic squeezed through the garlic press.  Some people add a little sugar to cut the acidity of the sauce, even a spoonful of sugar makes the sauce less sweet than canned.

If there are no tomatoes on hand, we've used leftover pesto, parm and olive oil to make a flatbread-like pizza instead.

We could probably use some help learning how to make those nice round shapes.....

Then about 15 minutes later (at 400* F), custom pizza is ready!

(Collective *sigh* of relief!)

Strawberry-Rhubarb Tartlets

This weekend, we decided to take a chance on some tartlets.  So we got out our gear and consulted a few recipes and....off we went!

I have a recipe for mini-quiches that I love to use for parties.  They're made with puff-pastry and filling.  I also have a recipe for pastry cream that's delightful.  I have a recipe for a fruit tart (large) that involves a similar cream and a short crust.  But the vision I had was for mini-puff pastry shells with pastry cream and a fruit filling.  So many questions were unanswered: could I bake the cream in the puff pastry?  Or would it fall apart?  Would the puff pastry overwhelm the cream if the cream didn't fall apart?  should the fruit be added before or after?  Would there even be room for fruit?

My assistant was game for a challenge, so we threw all caution to the wind (knowing I could always pick up some baklava if things went terribly wrong) and we decided to give it a go the morning before a party. 

We prepared the crusts as we do for the quiches.

Scooped in some pastry cream and baked them until the pastry was golden brown, about 12 minutes.  They didn't have the neat flat form of a quiche, which left us wondering whether the sliced strawberries I'd prepared would stick.  Clearly, we needed glue.

It's strawberry season around here and we'd found some amazing local berries, along with some fresh rhubarb.  I love the tangy, bright flavor of rhubarb and we find excuses to eat vats of strawberry-rhubarb compote around here.  It's great on toast, mixed into yogurt (as we learnd in the yog-wich post!) and on top of cereal in the mornings.  Turns out it makes great glue, too!

We dabbed each of the tartlets with our compote and put some of the fresh berry pieces on top.  The tartlets were amazing.  The pastry was light and flaky, the cream held together well through the short baking time, puffing and setting nicely, and the bright berry toppings made the whole dessert a perfect finger-food addition to the party table.

Our compote is super-simple.

In a saucepan, combine:

4 cups of rhubarb stalks, ends trimmed off, chopped into 1/2" pieces

an equal quantity of strawberries, tops removed, large berries cut in half and

1/3 cup water

Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture softens and begins to simmer

reduce heat and cook for about 20 minutes, until the compote has thickened slightly and all the fruits have dissolved.

You can add sugar to taste, about halfway through the cooking, but depending on your preferences and your fruit, you may not need any. 

We keep our extras in the fridge, but I have no idea how long it lasts since we never make it more than a few days!

Yog-wich

We had a light lunch today - ham and cheese sandwiches and a dish of yogurt with strawberry-rhubarb compote and fresh strawberries.

I looked up from my sandwich to see this:

Yes, she was slathering her sandwich with the yogurt, fruit mixed in.  My first reaction was easy enough to imagine, "did you just put yogurt on your sandwich???"  I was tired and was already getting upset over the wasted food and mess and someone was going to have to make a new sandwich and so forth....

"It's really good!"  she smiled.  And ate it.

"It is," my son nodded in agreement and slathered some on his sandwich.

Shoving aside all those adult understandings of what can't possibly be good, I did something that didn't come easily.  I tried it. A little bit.  With my nose kind of pinched up the way theirs is when I say they have to try one bit of whatever that disgusting thing is they're avoiding on their plate.

You know what?  It actually was good. 

I was then treated to a recitation of the many things that are good dipped in yogurt:  carrots!  apples!  bread!  rasins!  and as they were describing all the things that the school cafeteria teaches them, I was thinking....there's a long tradition of eating yogurt as a sauce, filler, and seasoning. 

I love Lebanese food, Greek food, soups thickened with yogurt, ranch-like dipping sauces.  And if all that is good, why can't turkey and cheese pair up with yogurt and tart fruits (cranberry jelly, remember that stuff!?)  for a novel sandwich?  I can imagine a chicken salad with this too. 

I'm always curious about how people find that new idea or novel combination that  turns out to be delish - here's to keeping an open mind.